Bloody Aachen

The ordinary fighting man often paid the price for his generals' mistakes. In this book Charles Whiting recreates the combat soldiers' world of forty years ago down to the most intimate detail: their weapons, the food they ate, how they learned to cope with the ever-present threat, how they lived in hope and died in agony.

From the beaches of Normandy to the cruel setbacks at Arnhem and the Battle of the Bulge, '44 is the story of early confidence turning to disillusion as the campaign wore on - appalling strategic blunders, of strained relations among the Allies, of ideals steadily overtaken by the grim reality of war.